Accused Boston marathon bomber to make first court appearance

July 10, 2013|Reuters

By Scott Malone

BOSTON, July 10 (Reuters) - Accused Boston Marathon bomberDzhokhar Tsarnaev is due in court on Wednesday to face chargesin the worst mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11,2001, a crime that could bring the death penalty.

The 19-year-old ethnic Chechen was charged late last monthwith killing three people by setting off homemadepressure-cooker bombs, assembled by him and his older brother,in a crowd of thousands of race spectators on April 15, andlater shooting dead a university police officer.

That shooting, and a later gun battle with police in thesuburb of Watertown, Massachusetts, led to the death of26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and a day-long lockdown of mostof the Boston area as police searched for Dzhokhar, who wasfound, badly wounded, hiding in a boat in a backyard.

The marathon attack injured about 264 people, with manylosing legs.

The biggest challenge for Tsarnaev's attorney, publicdefender Miriam Conrad, will be sparing him the death penalty,one observer said.

"I suspect that Miriam will start tomorrow by trying tochange his image and make him look like the normal, average,clean-cut young kid," said Walter Prince, a former federalprosecutor in Boston who is now a partner with the law firmPrince Lobel. He is not involved in the case.

BRIEF APPEARANCE

Tsarnaev's appearance at U.S. District Court in Boston - thesame building where mobster James "Whitey" Bulger is currentlyon trial - will likely be brief, with Conrad perhaps entering anot guilty plea on his behalf, Prince said.

Conrad did not respond to a request for comment.

According to court papers, Tsarnaev scrawled a note on aninside wall and beams of the boat in which he hid.

"The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians," thenote read, according to court papers. "We Muslims are one body,you hurt one you hurt us all."

"Now I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden inIslam but due to said it is allowed," he wrote,according to court papers. "Stop killing our innocent people andwe will stop."

Tsarnaev was badly wounded during the gun battle and arrest.After initially being confined at a city hospital, he was movedto a prison west of Boston. Prosecutors have declined to commenton his current condition or if he is still being held at theFort Devens, Massachusetts, facility.

The Tsarnaev brothers' ethnic homeland of Chechnya, a mainlyMuslim area that saw centuries of war and repression, no longerthreatens to secede from Russia. But it has become a breedingground for a form of militant Islam whose adherents have spreadviolence to other parts of Russia.

Three people died in the April 15 bombing - 29-year-oldrestaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 23-year-old graduatestudent Lingzi Lu and 8-year-old Martin Richard.

Three days later the Tsarnaevs shot dead MassachusettsInstitute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, accordingto the indictment.